


Gratitude

by katiebour



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Dreams, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Memories, Templars, The Chantry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-21
Updated: 2012-06-21
Packaged: 2017-11-08 05:30:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/439675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katiebour/pseuds/katiebour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a little Alistair fic for the lovely whitethornwolf on her birthday.  :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gratitude

Beeswax candles, red, guttering. He’d have to put out new ones later, clean up the drips that were left.

Voices, singing quietly in pre-dawn. The bell for vespers had rung clearly hours ago, the bell for matins only minutes ago. Bells for morning, noon, evening.

Eyelids fluttering, he shifted in his sleep, and dreamed.

Remembered.

He’d put on a smirk as his few belongings were moved from the castle to the town, to the Chantry and the Templar barracks within. Few would have guessed at the storm of eagerness, fear, anxiety, and pride roiling inside.

And only Uncle Eamon knew about the amulet he’d thrown against the study wall in anger, an action the boy already regretted.

He’d killed his mother with his birth, and his uncle was sending him away because Lady Isolde hated him so much.

Well, he hated her too.

Not that he’d miss the stables, so much. But how was he supposed to be a Templar? Templars were seven feet tall, wore shining armor and saved everyone from evil mages.

He was just Alistair.

The next few years had been a blur. Morning bells, matin prayers to Andraste, the morning sermon, a bowl of porridge and a mug of milk, then chores, chores, chores. He’d washed dishes and scrubbed floors until the second bell rung, sun shining in at mid-morning. Then it’d been another prayer, lessons, reading and reciting the Chant, history, exasperated instructors making him stand on a chair for whispered jokes or faces he pulled when he thought their backs were turned.

Third bell meant a midday meal of boiled, mashed turnips, day-old bread with butter, vegetable stew, sometimes a bit of meat if there was leftover mutton or beef from the previous night’s dinner, whispered limericks about the cook or the stodgy Knight-Lieutenant with the other boys, another round of scrubbing pots if a sour-faced adult with sharp ears happened to catch you.

Then it was on to afternoon weapons-work, sweating in the sunshine with a hilted stick and buckler in your hands, someone across from you ready to wallop you with their own stick if you let your guard down.

The girls always hit harder, it seemed.

Fourth bell was the signal for baths, running for the water-room, hoping to be the first to fill your bucket at the pump, cool water over bruises and overheated skin, rough soap stinging the cuts, jeering at the other boys and being jeered at in return.

Fifth bell meant evening lessons, prefaced by the usual prayer of thanks, stomachs rumbling as instructors paced, lectured, standing up at the front of the room and stumbling over a canticle, practicing one’s spelling on a slate with chalk, and standing on a chair again when caricatures of your instructor with a face looking more like a bare rear were confiscated, snickers from your year-mates and a cocky grin on your face, even when you’re assigned latrine duty for a month.

Sixth bell mercifully released them for dinner, fish from the lake, potatoes, parsnips, gravy if you were lucky. Standing in line with your plate, watching the last of the mutton getting served to the boy two spaces in front of you and inwardly cursing the extra quarter-hour you spent polishing silver for mouthing off to an initiate.

Seventh bell signaled vespers, filing in and sitting, tired and bored, for another hour of prayer, another sermon, another verse of the Chant sung in a voice that cracked awkwardly through the high notes, everything you’ve heard before and that you’ll hear again and again and again.

Feeling momentarily guilty for not being _grateful_ to the Maker and blessed Andraste, at least until a sister sitting behind you claps you on the head for not standing for another song, for not paying attention, up and down and listening dutifully to the drone of the brother up front, trying not to fall asleep.

Eighth bell signals curfew, being herded back to the barracks for a half-hour of rough-housing and general idiocy before lights-out. The Knight-Lieutenant leads everyone in the prayer before bed, and you say the words, wearily, not sure if you mean any of them, because you’ve said them every day for more days than you care to count, and tomorrow will be the same.

And there will be days when you see village children running around, chasing a dog with a stick in its mouth, being called in for supper by a mother who loves them, by a father who takes time in the day to show them how to fire a bow in the fields, or lets them help in the smithy, or who smiles with pride when they help stock the store shelves.

Bells call you away, and you watch, wistfully, then go inside to mouth words to Andraste about how grateful you are.

He woke, suddenly, breathing in the warm night air, Zevran faintly singing some Antivan song, the light from the fire casting brightness and shadows on the woman who slept at his side.

Sitting up, he took a sip of tepid, heavily watered ale from the leather-covered glass bottle nearby. Replacing the cork, he lay back down, and the woman beside him sighed, turned, body naked, sinuous, more beautiful than anything he’d ever seen in his life- every line, every scar a treasure.

She put an arm around him in her sleep, and he turned into it, these moments more personal and more precious than any in his life before.

And closing his eyes, he whispered the old evening prayer to Andraste, about duty, about gratitude, and found suddenly that he meant every word.


End file.
